A field guide to growing up without growing apart
This weekend I was asked THE DREADED QUESTION (What are you doing with your life) and didn’t really come out alive. By now you’d think I’d be good at deflecting this one, making up some sort of flowery answer that is somehow both satisfactory and […]
You know that problem, when the people in your life that you love just don’t seem to get along with the each other? And you’re stuck in the middle? Well, I have been feeling that way a lot recently- especially as regards to my house. […]
Oh Brother. Where, oh where to start.
I’ve written here and there
about him on this blog already but writing an entire post on my favorite (and only) brother seems ridiculously daunting. He and I go way back, back to when he was born and I thought he was my child to take care of, back to the time my parents told us they found me at the recycle center and him at the garbage dump, back to the days when he’d explicitly do anything I told him to (in order to impress my friends I once told him to dive headfirst into a garbage can. That didn’t end well), back to the moment I came home to find every beanie baby I owned duct taped to every surface of my room, back to the night he got dumped by his girlfriend of three days so we danced around the house blasting Cascada, back to the long car rides in the van when I’d steal his gameboy so he’d have to talk to me, back to when I knew he was a grown up because he called me ‘just to talk’ from college.
There is just way too much to say when it comes to my brother. He’s a dorky, charismatic, self-conscious, adorable extrovert who is just as happy reading a book alone or climbing a tree with friends as he is playing a video game or ballroom dancing. He’s got the best memory to ever exist, couldn’t ace a homework assignment if his life depended on it, spends hours writing poetry about zombies and has told me he’d be totally happy in life if he could find any job that made a decent wage and allowed him to have fun on the weekends. How on earth can I even attempt to wrap him up in a tidy blog post?
Right now, I don’t know what to do with the kid. He’s about to start his third year of college (though his transcript is marginal at best), with plans to major in history and not become a teacher. The major is a fall back after a few half-assed attempts at film, engineering, and computer science, so while he does enjoy history – at this point he’s just trying to get the degree. I wouldn’t be worried except that I am. He loves history, he can spew facts like a machine, but he isn’t the best at writing papers or supporting his assertions with facts. He knows this too, and it makes me sad that he won’t enjoy (or fully apply himself in) the classes he’s taking. He’s never been a school person, and I wish he’d take some time to either become one or find a way to power through it.
But at the same time he’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him. He’s found a social life through a ballroom dance club he joined on campus and made friends with all sorts of coworkers. He does a volunteer radio show on the campus station and every few weeks he records a commentary show with some internet friends about some internet animation series. He just started a new job at a sandwich place (he seems to like it… to me making salads for 6 hours straight for $8/hour sounds terrible) and even though the one thing he wants most is a girlfriend, I know he’s turned down a few advances lately because he’s holding out for someone else.
I’m so proud of him; he’s come a long way from the grumpy teenager I used to fight with a few years ago. But so have I, learning to keep quiet when all I wanted to do was criticize him for being an idiot. Things between us weren’t always great; there were years when he would only ask about me if I reminded him, when he thought of family vacations as his one true enemy. But somehow none of that ever lasted; even the summer when we fought 6 days out of the week we always managed to make up, finding something to laugh at or some way to forget what had been said before. As far as siblings go I’d say we’re really close, especially since I’ve moved back to Utah. Lately we talk on the phone about twice a week and he’ll stop by for a family dinner every other week. He tells me about girls and work and I tell him what it’s like to live with our parents again. It’s been fun, and I’d say I’m the closest to him I’ve ever been. But it’s also been hard, actively forcing myself to treat him as a friend, not someone I’m responsible to fix or micromanage. He’s my brother and I love him, but his life isn’t mine.
When it comes to what we want for our futures, we’re on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. He’d be great at anything; he can talk to anyone, remember everything and he takes anything he’s asked to do very seriously. For the last year he’s been the best movie theater usher the world has ever seen, completely unwilling to spend a few extra hours to apply ANYWHERE else and make a bit more money. He’s happy with where he is and who he’s with where I’m always looking to the next.
For me it’s a foreign concept that jobs exist in order to make money to play with on the weekends. He is undaunted by the prospect of choosing a career, he knows that wherever he lands he’ll just do his best to work his way up and eventually make a decent wage. I want a career I love, to spend my days and nights working toward all sorts of goals I believe in. I’ve been at this desk job for SEVEN MONTHS now and I’m seriously losing it. I’m not working on anything I care about. Yes, I’m helping a company I think is awesome, saving money and I’m even working on projects that are going to better the world, but I just don’t feel connected here. It’s partially because I’m young and living at home and not ready to ‘settle’ but its more than that too. I want to enjoy every part of my life, especially my work, because playing around on the weekends simply isn’t enough. I want a job where I take ownership and responsibility, where work ridiculously hard for two weeks and then don’t feel guilty for spending some time away when things slow down. Life ebbs and flows and I know I’m not built for a job that revolves around 5 o’clock. I don’t understand how my brother manages to focus so clearly on the present, it’s one of the things I admire most about him.
All I know is I super love the kid, like more than it makes sense to love someone who makes me so angry so often. I don’t know what he’ll do with his life, or what I’ll do with mine. But I know we’re only becoming better people and growing closer with age. I love him. And I know I’m lucky to have him in my life.
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Summer is here! And so is our favorite time of the month when all four of us come together to discuss the same topic. This Monthly Condition post is more of a survey than a question, asking each of us princesses a few questions about […]
I am the older sister to two younger brothers. Let’s call them Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, and yes these are real nicknames my parents sometimes used for them when we were growing up. I haven’t mentioned them much on the blog, most likely because I live […]
Friends I’m worried. What if social media is ruining our ability to actually presently enjoy anything?
On Saturday I went to this thing called Color Me Rad and even though hundreds of people were theoretically there to enjoy themselves, in actuality I was hard pressed to see anyone genuinely having any fun. Sure people were smiling, laughing, even dancing, but it was only for the cameras, and you know what? That isn’t okay.
Run by the same company who set up the Dirty Dash we attended a few weeks ago, Color Me Rad is a group 5k run event where colored chalk packets are thrown at people until they’ve crossed the finish line. All sorts of people, my friends included, flocked to downtown Salt Lake City at 7am on a Saturday to make good on their $35 participation fee (in advance. Day of tickets are $50) and claim their t-shirt and Ray-Ban knockoffs before the colorful 3 mile run. I tagged along as the official group photographer, deciding months earlier not to participate because I’m cheap, lazy and admittedly wary of ‘for the memory’ experiences.
Events like these are held all over the country, ranging from Mud Runs to Glow in the Dark 5ks to Electro-Pop dance races. Under the guise of a fundraiser (this one benefited the Salt Lake City Arts Festival), these companies are effectively setting up a giant photo shoot, providing an interesting backdrop for people to pad their Facebook Profiles. No, these runners weren’t there to support the Arts, or even to run a 5k(walking was encouraged), this event was purely to create ‘memories’ that they could use to entertain their social media followers.
I won’t lie, my motivations for running the Dirty Dash a few weeks ago weren’t purely experiential. I was glad when our parents decided to show up to take our pictures; a vain part of me wanted everyone on Facebook to know I had done it. But there is a difference in that running a 10k through mud and obstacles was an accomplishment worth remembering, where as walking 3 miles through clouds of colorful chalk provided no value on it’s own – the only meaning coming through looking at and posting the photos later.
Don’t get me wrong, I love taking photos. I love the thrill of setting up a beautiful shot, the look on my friend’s faces when they like something I’ve created, the act of going through old ones. Taking photos helps me feel a little more secure in my future, allowing me to trust that some of those emotions and feelings I experienced will be around if my sub-par memory needs them later.
But at the same time it isn’t okay when I’m at a concert and I see half the audience recording the performance. At lunch after the Color Run my friends were all on their phones, adding filters and scanning their feeds to see who commented instead of looking up and talking to each other. During the race I watched as people danced along to the dj’s music only to stop the second their friend put away the camera. At the end of the race people grabbed extra color packets and decorated themselves deliberately on their faces and heads for the cameras.
I don’t know what the answer is; I sure don’t plan on putting away my camera or canceling Facebook any time soon (I’m way too addicted to that little red notification button), but I do know that Social Media makes it easy for us to forget how to have genuine experiences. In the midst of Tweeting and Instagraming our lives away, I know I’m willing to make that extra effort to actually enjoy my life, instead of just convincing other people I am. Are you?
So I’m single. I have been for a while. And in my day to day life it is most often not an issue. I have great family and friends and I don’t feel I lack love in any way. I even find ways to get […]
So, ladies and gentlemen of the internet world, I have a confession to make. I am 23, and I have never been kissed. Is this weird? Isn’t that something that is supposed that happen to you when you are sixteen? If not before? Somehow ‘sweet […]
So I Went To California.
Oh man. Where to start? A list of course!
want that, a field I love, a place I know I’ll enjoy no matter the level of experience I’m in. How do people choose that? How do you decide to be happy in one area and not be afraid to take the time you need to work up to the position you want? I want it all, and I’m afraid I’m going to end up with nothing.This rarely happens on planes so I smiled to myself at the opportunity, fully planning to squander it by shyly absorbing myself in my book(which I hadn’t found a spare second to read all week) but as luck would have it this male peer was less apathetic than myself and put it upon himself to speak to me. Like many people, I tend to make jokes when I get nervous, so what could have been a short. “Hey, how are you. You’re nice for switching seats,” conversation turned into a full on flirt fest. (Also, who decided that feeling uncomfortable should be a sign of attraction anyway?).
Did I mention he was attractive? Nothing as perfect as the bus guy, but still and he was outgoing enough to make me bold. Before long we were really talking; he’d only flown once before and is the middle child of 5 boys, likes dirt bike racing and is on his way to becoming an EMT. I told him about my trip and my current lack of direction, why I fly on planes so much and what I miss about Seattle. It was nice and he was interesting; it had been a while since I’d held eye contact a few seconds too long. But as the flight continued and we got to know each other it became apparent that even if we lived close enough to date, I wasn’t interested.
He told me his family never vacationed together, that they’d never had the time or money to spend on things like that. He hadn’t gone to college and just quit his job of managing a Subway restaurant to join a year long church program that would eventually place him as an intern in his home church. He said he’d never really connected with his brothers. He said he knew exactly how his life would look from here on out. I liked him, I really did, but I travel all the time with my well –off family. I’m close with my brother and expect my children to get college degrees. I’m not religious and I have no idea what my future will bring. I found myself shocked as I realized these things mattered, even though they seem so secondary.
It’s terrible really, that a few external things can make such a difference, but as I’ve gotten older the more value I place on background and outlook in my relationships.
So why is it that a person’s background is such a turn on or off? Is it biological in that my ovaries aren’t willing to take the risk that he might turn out like his drunken brothers? Is it emotional in that I I’ll never be able to fully understand him? Or is it more about my privilege, wanting to find someone similar so I don’t have to feel guilty for being born into a happy home?When it comes to friendships, I feel like I gravitate toward people different than me; I crave adventure and new experiences. But I hold the people I date to a different standard, one that may well be impossible to meet. I want to be challenged, but apparently not by someone with less wealthy, outdoorsy and educated parents than myself. I want to choose my favorite passions, but I don’t want to fall in love with someone who thinks he has it figured out. I want to have children with a person who believes in magic, but not to raise them in a church.
I don’t know what it is, and part of me still hopes I’ll meet someone worth ‘overcoming’ our initial differences, but when I look at every happy couple in my life, they have most of those fundamental things in common. I used to believe opposites attract, but lately I feel more like the saying is opposites don’t attach.
We talked the rest of the flight, learning about each other and discussing philosophy and emotions. I got him to admit to feeling lonely and left out by his brothers and he got me to talk about what I want in the future. I learned a lot and had a wonderful time. I even got to debate religion with him. But I stopped worrying what he thought. We were different, and no matter what else we found in common, we’d always be platonic.
I’m on Vacation in California! Hello friendship and happiness! Okay so that isn’t really true. I’m actually sitting in my bedroom the day before I’m supposed to leave for California doing my best to avoid packing until the last possible second. Turns out there is […]
My name is Sleeping Booty and I’m a hoarder. Well, sort of. I like to think of myself more as a memory preserver than a junk collector, more like an information database than a maggot infested trash dump. I’m a keeper of records and saver […]
Don’t get me wrong, I love Easy A. Emma Stone was spot on and everything her parents say makes me happier than a baby monkey riding on a pig, but when my dad and I came across the movie while flipping channels this weekend he said the thing we’ve all been thinking: What happened to Amanda Bynes? There she was plain as day, playing the insecure antagonist when just a few short years ago she would have had this lead on lock. What happened to that actress from The Amanda Show who wasn’t afraid to look ridiculous or take a few risks? What happened to the girl who only accepted roles that showcased her independence, courage and gumption? What happened to the Amanda that inspired a generation of girls to fight for what they want?
Maybe Hollywood happened, I know I would crumble under the pressure of an interviewer telling me to lose 15lbs before he’d hire me. Maybe sex changed her, I heard she likes to meet boys at clubs now and her twitter posts aren’t exactly empowering. Or maybe it was just good old fashioned drugs and alcohol; a ton of alleged hit and run (while possibly intoxicated) charges in the last few years seem to signify a problem. I don’t know what happened, but instead of seeing my favorite energetic, intelligent, passionate on-screen friend, I catch glimpses of someone else, someone wrong. New Amanda seems like an insecure girl who isn’t happy, isn’t inspired, and frankly doesn’t seem to realize who she is. What happened Amanda? Are you okay? How do we get you back?
I refuse to believe that her writers and directors are solely responsible for her magic. And I refuse to believe that all that epic that she once was has simply disappeared never to return. Maybe it will take a few more years before she figures it out, and maybe it will take a few years after that for everyone else to come back around but until then I’m going to keep on believing in Amanda, because we’re all 20-something and figuring it out; she just has to do it in front of the world.
So here it is! I give you my
TOP TEN REASONS WHY AMANDA BYNES WILL ALWAYS BE AWESOME:
She’s the queen of physical comedy. Her face can go in every way and she isn’t afraid to fall hard. She’ll try anything and push her limits. She’s not afraid to make a fool of herself on camera. And because of that we love her all the moreWE WANT AMANDA! WE WANT AMANDA! WE WANT AMANDA!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JC-FNKLl3sg